Tiptoeing into a Political Discussion

So I generally have nothing to do with politics.  And this is not a polemical post for or against any political views on any side of the map.  I try to be as anti-Republican as I am anti-Democrat, and that doesn't mean I'm an Independent!  I just happen to be of the opinion that politics, as a fully human institution, are frail.  And each politician and political party takes its own stab at what it sees as the "right" way, or the appropriate platform(s); to assume that any politician or political party could "get it right" in every way, or to assume that one could find a party that expresses perfectly all of one's own convictions, is ludicrous.


As I said, that's my opinion.  I speak the above paragraph in humility, knowing I don't have it figured out.  In fact, I know next to NOTHING about politics, specifically because I tend to stay out of it and see the whole endeavor as fairly pointless.  If you are passionate about a particular political party, my goal in this post is not to bash your party, and it certainly isn't to upset you.  Instead, I hope you will pause to consider whether there should even be a "your" party.  Said differently, when you fully support the "party line" of any political party, should there not be areas of dissonance, where you find yourself disagreeing with some of the platforms of "your" party?  What are parties, after all, or party platforms?  Aren't they just conglomerations of ideas and stances held by a majority of a group that holds to similar patterns of thinking?  For example: put me in a room with 10 people who think in a similar way to me (perhaps all Bible students with similar family backgrounds from similar parts of the country), and we could probably come up with a list of beliefs that a majority of us hold to.  That would be our party line.  But certainly there would be beliefs that I didn't quite agree with, where I was in the minority.  Just because that's my "party," shouldn't I still think critically as an individual about what I believe?


Here's what stoked all of this thinking and stimulated this post.  There was an article on Drudge Report about the Tea Party, and this article was quoting from German political theorists who were commenting on the political situation in America.  I found all of their quotes very interesting.  (I am just learning about the Tea Party, and I found the article informative and helpful.  You can see the full article here).  In this article, the German business newspaper Handelsblatt was quoted as saying this of the situation in American politics (and specifically of the Tea Party), from an outside (perhaps fairly objective) viewpoint:

"Glen Beck, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are part of an opposition movement outside of Congress which is moving mountains. This is a revolt against 'Obamaism,' which is seen as representing big government, more taxes, a higher deficit and not enough 'Americanism.' Day by day, it puts more and more pressure onto those at the top."

"In the US, people ... spend time and money supporting the Republicans. Unlike in Germany, in America, which never had a Hitler, being 'right-wing' is not taboo. 'Right-wing' represents Reagan, religion, the free market, individualism, patriotism and small government. In reality, it is an impossible mixture: National pride, God and tradition are conservative 'us' values. The profit motive, competition and a weak state are 'me-first' sentiments ... . But this mixture of conservative values and neoliberalism works well in America, where it transcends social class -- that's the difference to Germany."

Pay attention to the last three sentences.  I am not wise enough about politics to know whether I agree with his (or her) assessment, but I find it fascinating that they claim an "impossible mixture."  An "us-first" mentality (evidenced in the author's eyes by national pride and religion) is held side-by-side (due to the Republican party line) with a "me-first" mentality (evidenced by a motive for profit and competition in the business world).  How can this be, without at least a mild amount of dissonance?  How can there be so many politically-minded people who hold to both a me-first and us-first mentality, without sensing there is something awry in this party line?  Or to consider another example, how can the Democratic party be so passionate about "caring for the least of these" by providing for those in need (seeking to provide health care or welfare, for example), yet at the same time de-value life by condoning abortion?  And how can Republicans value life by being anti-abortion, yet de-value life by being pro-death penalty?  The questions could go on.  

In my opinion, party platforms are nothing more than a group of beliefs held by a majority of people who group themselves together, and if we are thinking people we should NEVER be comfortable with all of the assumptions of "our" party...  

If my words offend you, I do sincerely apologize.  I know people get very heated about politics.  You are certainly entitled to your opinions, and if your opinions include the belief that your party's party line is 100% correct and does not contain any of these "impossible mixtures", you are entitled to disagree with me.  But it is my opinion that every party contains these impossible mixtures, and that none of us should ever be at home in a political party--especially if we call ourselves Christians and are called to a way of thinking drastically different from that of the world around us (1 Peter 2:9-12).  

Those are my thoughts.  I'm 100% confident they are not all correct!  Just trying to stimulate us to think and ask questions.  I don't have the answers.  If anyone tells you they have the answers, especially on an issue as complex as politics, walk away slowly...  :)

Serving Others From a Position of Weakness

I ran across a great quote from Karl Barth in my reading today.  In case you don't know, he is a very well-known German theologian, probably the greatest theologian of the 20th century in many minds.  He wrote a HUGE work called Church Dogmatics that I believe is supposed to be a systematic theology (expounding on all the basics of the Christian faith), and he also wrote many other works.  This quote comes from his commentary on Romans, and he is commenting on Romans 2:1, which says, "You, therefore, are without excuse whenever you pass judgment on someone else, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things."

Barth says, "Whenever thou dost erect thyself upon a pedastal, thou doest wrong; whensoever thou sayest 'I' or 'we' or 'it is so', thou dost exchange the glory of the incorruptible for the image of the corruptible (Romans 1.23)... The removal of thyself from the burden of the world by some pretended insight or vision does but press the burden of the world more heavily upon thee than upon any other.  By striding ahead of others, even though it be for their assistance, as though the secret of God were known to thee, thou dost manifest thyself ignorant of God's secret; for by thy removal from thy fellows thou dost render thyself incapable of assisting even the most helpless among them.  By beholding folly as the folly of others, thine own folly cries out to heaven" (Romans 56).

Though I disagree with Barth when he states that this is what Paul means in 2:1, I love his thoughts.  I especially resonated with the statement that when we remove ourselves from the burdens of the world by some pretended insight, striding ahead of others even to help them, we show ignorance.  To help and serve and love others, we cannot claim positions or power or wisdom or knowledge or prerogative.  We simply must offer our help to them as one sinner serving another.  When we act like we are in some sense an expert, like we have something to offer, it is then that we are furthest from being able to make any impact on the needs of others...  It is then that our "own folly cries out to heaven"!

The Finish...

I heard a commentary on ESPN Radio today, where the speaker was talking about a recent vacation he and his family took.  He talked about how the vacation was excellent, the kids had a great time, no one got hurt, it was a great bonding experience, etc.  They had nothing but positive emotions related to the vacation.  Then they got on the plane to come home with their 1 year old, and everything changed.  The way the vacation ended, he said, totally colored the vacation as a whole.  How quickly those fun times were forgotten as they stumbled into the house exhausted from the trip home!

He went on to relate this to the US Open golf tournament which was played this past week, where a golfer was absolutely dominating through the first three rounds of the tournament.  He looked calm, made all the right decisions, and just generally was the best golfer on the course.  Yet in his final round he completely bombed, shooting an 11-over par.

These things made me consider the finish in our relationship with God, and how really this is all that matters.  The start is crucial to getting us on the journey, but it is only the start.  And anyone can start.  Very few can say with Paul, "I have fought the good fight.  I have finished the race.  I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7).

So you were really close to God a few years back?  Great.  You used to study the Bible all the time, so much so that you still remember TONS about the Bible?  Cool.  You have always been known as a very devoted follower of Christ by all your friends?  Fantastic.  But are you still running the race?  Are you still seeking God?  Are you still in relationship with him, communing with him on a regular basis?  I know these questions have been very humbling and challenging for me to consider, for it is so easy to sort of "ride the wave" of your spiritual past, forgetting that God is not dead.  On the contrary, he is very much alive, as alive as your spouse or your child.  And he is not interested in the past of our relationship with him, good or bad, nor is he even too interested in our future relationship; he is interested in the present, the here-and-now, daily walk with him he longs for us to have.

May you not merely begin the marathon of faith, and may you not fizzle out at mile 18.  Keep going.  Fight the good fight of the faith.  Keep the faith.  And finish.  It is all about how you finish, and none of us know where the finish line is...

The Rich Man and Lazarus: a new reading

This morning in my time with God I flipped to Luke 16 and began reading the parable Jesus told there about the rich man and Lazarus.  I memorized these verses when I was in high school, and have read them or heard them preached many times.  But today I read them in an entirely new way, and I think I may have finally understood what Jesus was actually intending to say through the parable.

In case you’re not familiar, and so that we’re all on the same page, here is the parable:

Luke 16:19 ¶ “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

Luke 16:20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,

Luke 16:21 who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.

Luke 16:22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.

Luke 16:23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.

Luke 16:24 He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’

Luke 16:25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.

Luke 16:26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’

Luke 16:27 He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—

Luke 16:28 for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’

Luke 16:29 Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’

Luke 16:30 He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’

Luke 16:31 He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Until now, I have read this parable as a statement about the afterlife and about the interplay of wealth and poverty in the world’s eyes versus true wealth and poverty.  And certainly I think these issues are at play in the parable.  But it finally occurred to me that Jesus did not tell the parable to make any sort of statement about the afterlife.  This is at best a sub-plot.  As you read the parable, it is going somewhere, and that somewhere is the final few verses.  The entire story about Lazarus and the rich man seems to me to merely be the set-up, the context, for the punch line. 

Jesus wants to get a point across TO THE PHARISEES about the fact that they need to listen to what Moses and the prophets have said.  He makes it clear in other statements that Moses and the prophets (a shorthand way of saying the entire Old Testament) all point to him, find their culmination in him, are ABOUT him.  The parable is about Jesus, and he is trying to get a point across to the Pharisees, who will not listen to him.

He gives the context of the rich man and Lazarus, with Lazarus in heaven and the rich man in hell.  THIS IS NOT A STATEMENT ABOUT WHAT HEAVEN WILL BE LIKE.  It is merely the set up for his parable.  Now surely we can assume that if anyone knows what heaven will be like, it is Jesus.  Christian doctrine even states that he was in heaven with God from the beginning, and he descended to earth.  So I am not saying Jesus is unaware of what heaven will be like, or that he is wrong, or that people in hell can’t see those in heaven, or anything like that.  I’m merely saying that wasn’t his point.  It wasn’t his point at all.  It’s all just part of a story he’s telling to get to an important truth.  We must not read a doctrine of heaven and hell into a parable, extracting doctrine from Jesus’ words when he is speaking in parable, in metaphor. 

After giving the context, he gets to the crux of the parable: the rich man’s brothers.  Since they are his brothers, we can assume they were also elites with some measure of wealth and authority.  These men were Jews.  In fact, it is important to remember that this parable is spoken to Jews (by a Jew) and is about Jews.  This will become important in a minute.  The rich man is rebuffed by Abraham when he requests a drip of cool water.  (Again, Jesus is not making a statement about what Abraham’s position in heaven will be—it’s part of the story, and we must use our imaginations and not seek to extract doctrine).  After this, he begs Abraham to send the dead Lazarus to his father’s house, so that he can warn them about hell.  Abraham’s response is crucial to what I am saying: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them.” 

As I said, this story is about Jews, so this is why this statement makes sense; the prominence of Abraham in the story emphasizes the thorough Jewishness of everyone in the parable.  Jesus is making a statement to the Jewish leaders, to whom he is telling this parable.  The rich man’s brothers in this parable are the Jewish leaders hearing the parable.  Though they are in positions of power, there is an afterlife, where everyone is rewarded or punished for what he has done.  What we do on earth matters.  And they need to change their attitudes and actions, and stop seeking out power and influence (which is the primary reason they persecuted Jesus) and start seeking God.  If they did, they would realize Jesus was not an impostor or a blasphemer but was from God, was God.  The rich man in the parable begs Abraham to send Lazarus so that they might understand, and Jesus is saying that he wishes the Pharisees would understand.  He desires the best for them. 

When Abraham explains that they have Moses and the prophets, the rich man responds by saying that is not enough.  They need more proof.  Likewise, Jesus is saying that for the Pharisees, the fact that the entire Old Testament points so starkly to him has not been enough to wake them from their vengeful slumber, to take the scales off their blind eyes.  They still don’t understand.  And then comes the punch line of the parable when the light went off for me.  Abraham responds to the rich man’s second request to send Lazarus (since Moses and the prophets won’t be enough to convince them), “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”  Did you hear that?  After reading this a hundred times, it never dawned on me how clearly this statement is about Jesus.  He’s speaking directly to the Pharisees about himself, saying that he will rise from the dead.  They probably didn’t get it, and no one else who heard him probably did either.  But that’s how Jesus worked, and that’s how parables worked.  They become clear after the fact, or they confuse us until we see them in a new light.  Of course I could be wrong about all this, but at least I am convinced! 

If you, Pharisees, are not convinced that I am the Son of God by Moses and the prophets, and that you better stop persecuting me and start following me, you will not be convinced even if “someone” rises from the dead.  Even if that someone was me, after you kill me!  If you don’t want to believe, you won’t.  Simple as that.

This has so many implications for us: certainly for how we read this text, but also for how we understand belief and faith.  Faith is not about being able to define everything and get all the facts straight.  It’s about seeing what is plainly in front of our faces, and trusting that it’s not an illusion.  It’s about believing the compelling truth that is offered to us, instead of trying to find ways to rebuff it (because only a truth tested and examined and “put under the microscope” can be trusted).  The reason this sort of “faith” doesn’t work is because we can always find reasons not to believe.  Even if someone were to rise from the dead, we could find reasons not to believe… 

May you see the truth that has been presented to you: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior and Forgiver of sins.  And may you not seek to find the reason why it’s NOT true, but fall headlong into the freedom of a relationship with him.  The best way to know the reality of God and the presence of God and the love of God is simply to be with God; in his presence faith becomes so simple…

The Greatest of these is Love

I have a thought I wanted to share from Scripture, simply because it is beautiful to me and thought someone else might appreciate it.  This is a thought pointed out by a Greek professor I had a couple years ago, so it's something I've been thinking about for a while. .

It is regarding 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter.  My professor asked us what we thought Paul was getting at when he said, "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love."  I had never really given much thought to what Paul meant when he said this, or to what God is saying to us as Christians today through these words.  If asked, I probably would have said that Paul was simply saying that faith, hope, and love were all extremely important, but that love was the greatest.  In other words, it was just a poetic way to emphasize love's exceeding importance.

However, my professor challenged us to think about why love is the greatest of these three.  In his view (and after a couple years of thought I agree with him), of these three virtues love is the greatest because it is the only one that will last.  It is the only one that, in the end, will ALWAYS remain.  There will come a day when faith is no longer necessary.  If faith is being certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11), there will come a day when faith will be obsolete, because we will see clearly.  We will see Jesus face to face.  We will know him, and he will be with us, and he will be our God.  And there will come a day when hope will no longer be necessary, for who hopes for what he already has?  On that day Revelation 21 tells us there will no more death or mourning or crying or pain.  Everything will be restored.  Shalom has returned.  Hope is no longer needed, because things are right.  But love...  Love is the greatest, because it will last.  The love we experience now is but a taste of the deep and full love we will experience for eternity, as we are loved by God with the deepest love, loved by the essence and creator of love...  And as we love him back, and love each other.  The greatest of these is love...

Spiritual Formation

My own personal spiritual formation is an issue that I have struggled with and continue to struggle with: in the midst of life and all its demands, and in light of my own self-centeredness, how do I establish a rhythm or routine that enables me to encounter Christ and be formed spiritually?  I have been working through this for quite some time, and this semester was reintroduced to the work of Ruth Haley Barton called Sacred Rhythms.  Actually working through this book has been so refreshing for me, has introduced or re-introduced several spiritual disciplines that I think will be so helpful for me, and has laid the groundwork for me to incorporate a rhythm into my life that will enable me to grow.

I won't bore you with the details of my own journey, but I wanted to share that in case this book could help prod and encourage anyone else in their spiritual journey.  I'll post a link to it on Amazon below...

Is Hunting Off-limits??

So I have never hunted before.  Let me preface this post with that admission, or claim to the moral high ground, however you see the issue personally. :)  I have never given much thought to the ethical dimensions of hunting, probably because I have never been that interested in environmentalism.  I am starting to wake up to the importance of this issue, although I still am not as cooperative as I should be in the recycling my wife tries to do.  I see how important it is to value and treasure the earth, since it is the only earth God has given us and we are the stewards of that gift (in a similar fashion to how we have been given one physical body and must be good stewards of that).  But I have been slow to act on my realization of the importance of this truth.

I have been even slower to recognize how important it is to treasure animals and all of God's creatures.  Part of this stems from my strong negative feelings toward the "pet idol" movement I have observed in America: pets are like people, and we value them to such a great extent that they become an idol for us, something we value more than human relationships.  Despite that unhealthy tendency, though, it is true that God's creatures are valuable in his sight--all creatures, both human and animal--and we must value them and treat them with respect.

I just read a quote that got me thinking of all this, and here it is:
"The Noachic covenant [God's covenant with Noah found in Genesis 9] emphasizes reverence for the mystery of life, symbolized by the blood.  Permission is given to human beings to slaughter meat for food, but with appropriate reserve and reverence (Gen. 9:4-5).  Their God-given freedom does not entitle them to kill for sport or to destroy species.  The nonhuman creation is not there simply for humans to use or exploit.  Animals too are precious in God's sight, and this valuation may extend to trees, flowers, and other parts of 'nature.'  In short, human beings are caretakers of God's creation... This is what is involved in being made in the image of God: to rule the earth in wisdom, justice, and compassion so that the rule of God may be manifest in human actions" (Bernard Anderson, Contours of Old Testament Theology, 95).

Wow.  That's a great quote in my opinion.  The comment near the end about being made in the image of God goes back to his earlier discussion of what this phrase means.  To be made in the image of God, in Anderson's view, means to have a function or role, to represent God on earth, "just as a child represents the parent on a family estate" (90).  In this view, man "is not an autonomous being, at liberty to rule the earth arbitrarily or violently.  On the contrary, human dominion is to be exercised wisely and benevolently so that God's dominion over the earth may be manifest in care for the earth and in the exercise of justice" (91).

This is what all goes back to hunting!  If we are not free to treat the earth how we want, whether through treating animals violently or through raping the earth's natural resources in whatever fashion we want, then that certainly has implications for how we live.  We must do what we can to treasure the earth and its creatures, both in our own lives and through the laws we support.  And maybe we should take another look at hunting and the underlying assumptions behind it.  I have always felt a little uncomfortable with the idea of killing an animal for fun, but Genesis 9 seems to instruct us to treat the blood of animals with great respect, for the life given to it by God is in its blood.  It is one thing to kill an animal to nourish our bodies.  I believe this is absolutely okay, mainly because Scripture says it is okay and because I do believe that animals are subject to humans, since God set it up that way.  However, does our "dominion" over animals give us the right to kill them for fun?  Isn't there something about this that fails to treasure God's creation?  Isn't there something about this that fails to rule the earth in wisdom and compassion?  I'm just asking the question...

Purpose of the Church: Michael Frost

I just posted a mini-review of the first section of The Shaping of Things to Come, and this post is about a youtube video I just watched with one of its authors, Michael Frost.  Michael talks about the purpose of the Church in compelling ways, ways that challenged me, and I wanted to share some of his thoughts.  If you'd like to watch the video for yourself (it's only 3 1/2 minutes), you can go here.

“The purpose of the Church, I think, is to alert people to the universal reign of God in Christ, in the same way as that was the purpose of Israel—to alert people to the universal reign of Yahweh…The gospel for Israel was that Yahweh reigns…over all kingdoms and dominions.  The Christian message is the same, except that reign and rule is exemplified and confirmed for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus.”

The purpose of the Church, then, is to alert people to the reign and rule of God in Christ.  This is “more than church growth, attracting more numbers, more than saving the lost.”  He says there are two ways we alert people to God’s reign: we announce it and declare it, through relationships and public praise and proclamation, and we also demonstrate what the reign of God looks like.  If the reign of God is characterized by love, justice, mercy, grace, then we as the Church ought to go and act that out now, demonstrating for the world what the reign of God looks like: “show people what the world to come looks like here in the midst of the disorder of this world.”  Arguments about whether the Church should do social action or evangelism have no place.  The Church ought to be like a trailer for the greatest blockbuster movie in history—the world ought to look at the Church as it demonstrates what the universal reign of God looks like and want to participate!  “People ought to look at the Church—they ought to look at individual Christians—and they ought to see a trailer of this world to come.  They ought to see peace, justice, love, mercy, kindness.  They also ought to see celebration and joy, delicious flavors and beautiful life.  They ought to look at it and think, ‘I’d like to see the whole thing!’  I think that’s the purpose of the Church: to announce and to demonstrate the universal reign of God in Christ.  And then, if the Church grows, it’s incidental.  I think it will grow… But the primary goal is this alerting people to this irreversible truth of God’s reign.”

This is a beautiful way to see the purpose of the Church in my opinion: to announce and demonstrate the reign of God in Christ.  Personally, I think a big part of announcing is going, and as we go we also must demonstrate as a community this reign of God already being played out in our midst.  Too often the Church has stayed stagnant, attempting to announce from our pulpits and demonstrate from our cozy church buildings the reign of God.  We must do so by going and through proactive relationships with our neighbors, friends, colleagues, family members, etc. 

One of his most crucial points for me is that our focus has been skewed for too long, and we have made church growth and numbers our focus.  If we are living out the universal reign of God in our midst, demonstrating a radically loving, just, sacrificial community, the church will grow.  We'll never need another outreach "program" or church growth plan.  May we as individuals and as the Church be this trailer for the world, both announcing and demonstrating the wonderful, freeing, righteous reign of God.

The Missional Church

So I read a book called The Shaping of Things to Come by Frost and Hirsch a while back, and I am going through it with some friends right now.  I wrote out a few thoughts pertaining to the first section of the book, and I thought I would share those thoughts here as well.  The book certainly has some ideas that I don't wholeheartedly agree with, but on the whole it hits the nail on the head and makes some very important challenges to the way the church in the West is currently operating.  I invite and encourage you to get this book and work through it.  There is a link to buy it at the bottom of this article...

Thoughts on The Shaping of Things to Come through page 107

This book was like a breath of fresh air for me.  It addressed many areas I have been working through and trying to come to grips with.  Though it didn’t answer all my questions, and though I didn’t agree with every point or resonate with every idea, I was incredibly refreshed by the authors’ fresh vision for the Church.  This book introduced me to the idea of the “missional church,” which is summed up very well by Rick Meigs on his website www.friendofmissional.org.  Part of his description says: “At its core, missional is a shift in thinking. This shift in thinking is expressed by Ed Stetzer and David Putman in their book, Breaking the Missional Code (Broadman & Holman, 2006) like this:

From programs to processes

From demographics to discernment

From models to missions

From attractional to incarnational

From uniformity to diversity

From professional to passionate

From seating to sending

From decisions to disciples

From additional to exponential

From monuments to movements”

This is a good way to introduce this stream in the church that is moving in a powerful way.  It is in part a reaction against the institutionalized church, and I feel that Hirsch and Frost have summed up its main thrusts very well in this book.

My journey has played a large part in the ways that this book has challenged me, shaped me, and set me on a path toward being involved with a new kind of church.  For my entire life, I have always been an integral part of whatever church I have attended: I was a leader in my youth group as a student, I was at a small church while at college where I was well-known and then was a youth pastor after that.  I was always sort of in a privileged position, and it was easy for me to get to know people—in fact, people were seeking out relationships with ME mostly! 

Then we moved down here to Kentucky, not really thinking about the transition to finding a church.  We had a very difficult time.  We went from church to church trying to find a community of Christ-centered people who would embrace us and whom we could embrace.  We signed up for welcome classes that got cancelled, we signed up for small groups and were never placed in them, we sought out friendships and were turned away.  We felt like we were finally encountering what it must be like for people who are trying to “break in” to the culture of the church.  It was tough!  Because we are committed followers of Christ, we kept looking and eventually settled on a church merely because we were able to get into a small group there.  We have become hungry for community, a genuine community of Christ-followers who are focused on loving God, loving each other, and loving the world.  This has been hard to find, and this vision is what I feel the authors tapped into for me.  I am so tired of churches worrying about sustaining themselves (as institutions), focusing on the building of buildings and the budget and the maintenance of the programs of the church.  I know these things have their place, and I certainly have played my part in sustaining these aspects of the church.  But they seem to take over and mask the entire nature of the church!  The church is not an institution—it is a living organism, a community of people, a family.  I personally feel like this nature is hidden in the vast majority of churches by its own programs and goals and budgets and passions.

All of that is introduction, believe it or not!  J  Let me move on to talk specifically about the book’s first 107 pages and what struck me the most.  I found the discussion at the beginning about the Burning Man festival interesting.  Of course such a festival is not the church, but I resonated with the authors’ connection between this festival and the longings of humanity, specifically in our postmodern world.  The most powerful longing I think this festival displays is a longing for belonging.  We all want to be a part of something with others, to be in community, and to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.  I also resonated with the festival’s focus on the experiential and on celebration—I think these are longings that the church too often ignores…

I really appreciated their discussion on Christendom, and from my education in church history I found them to be right on target.  They said that through the shift under Constantine, “Christianity moved from being a dynamic, revolutionary, social, and spiritual movement to being a religious institution with its attendant structures, priesthood, and sacraments” (8).  This is key to me, and points to the source of many of the problems in the Church’s focus and understanding of its nature and mission 1700 years later.  We must regain our focus on being a missionary movement rather than an institution.

While I disagree with their sweeping assessment that the church planting movement has gone bust to a large degree, I agree with them on their point that most church plants are merely carbon copies of the dominant Christendom model, “duplicating a failing system” (18).  They seem to still be advocating church planting, in fact, although a missional type of church, one that abandons the Christendom assumptions and sees the nature and purpose of the church as a church sent “to bring healing to a broken world” (18). 

Their summary of what this missional church will look like is spelled out on page 22, and overall it’s a vision I get very excited about: it places a high value on communal life, has more open leadership structures, and values the contribution of everyone in the community.  It is experiential and participatory in worship and is deeply concerned for matters of justice and mercy.  These are the things I have been longing to see the church focus on, moving away from its “come to us” mentality and its institutionalized focus.  I believe existing churches can begin to make these changes, but it will take serious shifts in the way we look at ourselves and the purpose and function of our churches.  We must begin to see the church we attend not as a club you can join but as the corporate community of individuals following Christ…

Their focus on the church becoming incarnational was a little confusing for me as I read back through it, but I appreciated the descriptions on page 38 of what they meant—we must truly become a part of the people group we are trying to reach, identifying with them in real ways as Christ identified with humanity in his incarnation.  In other words, we must not stand apart from our neighbors or call out to the not-yet Christians among whom we live, telling them to come to church!  This has been the attractional model: we have the goods, and you need to get with the program and come to us if you want those goods.  Instead, we must enter into real relationships with them and identify with them in true ways if we ever hope to invite them to know Christ. 

Beyond this, the church must turn its gaze toward this incarnational stance; we must not stand apart from our culture or neighborhoods but must become enmeshed in them.  “Jesus moved into the neighborhoods; he experienced its life, its rhythms, and its people from the inside and not as an outsider” (39)—we must also do this if we hope to do the work God has called us to.

The graphs on page 41 sum up the difference between attractional and incarnational: the mission mode and impulse in the attractional model is inward, seeking to get people to “come to church,” while the mission mode and impulse in the incarnational model is outward, seeking to go and share life with the communities of which we are a part.  Through this shared life we can invite our friends to join us in the journey of following Christ. 

Frost and Hirsch say: “We believe that the web of relationships, friendships, and acquaintances that Christians normally have makes up the net into which not-yet Christians will swim.  We believe the missional-incarnational church will spend more time on building friendships than it will on developing religious programs” (44).  This is a beautiful challenge to me, and a needed one.  We need to regain (as individual followers of Christ who are a part of his body, the community, the church) our focus on relationships with others, in the process sacrificing some of our focus on programs and planning and productivity.

One more thought and then I'll stop.  The authors provide a very powerful discussion about the way we view the Church and the world, ourselves and our neighbors.  They express that for too long Christians have bought into a faulty way of thinking, which they refer to as the "fence" mentality.  In other words, those who follow Jesus are "in" the fence, and those who do not are "out" of the fence.  This in/out, us/them mentality has led directly to the institutionalization of the church, to viewing the body of Christ as something you can become a member of, a sort of social club.  Rather, we ought to view the journey of faith in terms of a "well."  Jesus is the well, and there are no fences.  Some are close to the well, connected with Christ on an intimate basis, and some are far from the well.  But all are on the journey, and it is our role as Christians, as the Church, to draw those who are far from the well toward it.  We are missionaries, going to all who are far from the well (not-yet-Christians, rather than "unbelievers" or "non-Christians") and inviting them to know Christ.  We are not an institution, waiting for those who are "out" to come to the source and get the goods...

I again invite you to buy this book and read it.  At the very least, it is challenging and insightful.  If you have thoughts about the book or about what I've written here, I'd love to hear your thoughts...

What are gospels?

I have noticed in my own life and the lives of others that a fundamental misunderstanding of what the gospels are has caused major problems.  Because much of the Christian faith is based on the historical man Jesus, and because so much of that faith is based on the four gospels, which claim to offer firsthand information regarding him, it is really important that we understand what they are.  I have often been guilty of asking too much or too little of these books, or reading them as one document instead of four.  Here, according to Mark Allan Powell, is how we ought to understand the gospel genre as seen in the New Testament:

-Gospels are “literary artworks” presenting a portrait of Jesus that is distinctive from the other gospels—we should not try to combine the portraits of the gospels to paint a unified picture of Jesus, because this causes us to miss the particular image each gospel writer wanted to present…  First we must recognize the four separate portraits.

-Gospel genre: loosely fits into the genre of “ancient biography”—these were common in the Roman world, with Plutarch writing more than 50.  Mostly were about emperors, generals, heroes, philosophers, and religious leaders.

-Five more things need to be said about the gospel genre:

1. They are compilations—include other genres within their pages, like genealogies, hymns, parables, miracle stories, speeches, pronouncement stories, etc.
2. They are influenced by Jewish literature—written in Greek but by people well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures, which include semibiographical narratives of people like Abraham and Moses. 
3. They are ancient biographies, not modern ones—make no pretense of offering objective or balanced perspectives on Jesus’ life, nor do they report their sources or offer any way for readers to check the reliability of what they wrote.  Further, their treatment is not comprehensive: reveal little about Jesus’ personality or motivation, provide almost no information about his early life, do not describe his physical appearance, etc.  Audiences at this time did not expect such questions to be addressed in biographies—point was to relate accounts that portrayed the essential character of the person so as to invite emulation of him.  Chronology was also typically not of concern, so that events were not reported in the order they occurred but in a sequence likely to have a particular rhetorical effect on its readers.
4. They employ a fictive (“fictionlike”) style of narrative—literary style is closer to that of modern fiction than to modern historical reporting.  This doesn’t speak to the accuracy of what was reported, but the STYLE of writing is similar to today’s historical fiction.  They knew the art of storytelling, employing literary devices such as irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing—so we can talk about the “plot” of a particular gospel, or about how its rhetorical features bring the story to a climax.  Authors in this time treated history as a story and told it with a flair that modern readers associate with fiction.
5. They are overtly evangelistic—most biographies in the ancient world were in one way or another, not simply passing on information but reporting on extraordinary people with the hope that readers would be inspired and motivated to change their values or behaviors accordingly.  The gospel writers clearly tell the story in a way that may inspire people to accept his teaching or practice his way of life.  More than this, the writers make it clear that they believe Jesus’ story has ultimate significance and will affect the lives of all people, whether they believe in him or not.

These items were extremely helpful to me in understanding what the gospels are and what they were intended to be.  These help me not to read too much into these accounts, or expect them to report in certain ways they never intended to.  For example, it is easy to read the gospels with an expectation that they will conform to modern historical writing.  This is very different from the gospels, and while this does not mean that anything reported in the gospels is historically inaccurate, it does mean that this was not their purpose.  So if something is reported differently or in a different sequence in Mark and Luke, it does not mean one is right and one is wrong--it means that the two authors have chosen to present the facts of what happened in different manners and with different purposes.

Hope this is helpful to you as well, and inspires you to pick up those gospels as individual books and learn about who Jesus was and is according to each gospel writer...

Real Baby Fake Baby...

The article below appeared today on CNN.  Needless to say, I was disgusted.  And the question that came to mind was: What causes this?  What on earth is going on inside people that they act in such a way?  Consider those questions as you read...

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- Police have arrested a South Korean couple whose toddler starved to death while they were raising a virtual child online, authorities said.

The couple fed their 3-month-old daughter once a day between marathon stretches in a local Internet cafe, where they were raising a virtual child in the fantasy role-playing game Prius Online, police told local reporters Friday.

Prius Online is a 3-D game in which players nurture an online companion, Anima, a young girl with mysterious powers who grows and increases her skills as the game progresses.

Police have not identified the 41-year-old father and 25-year-old mother, who lived in Suwon, a suburb south of Seoul. But the father apologized, speaking to reporters.

"I wish that she hadn't got sick and that she will live well in heaven forever. And as the father, I am sorry," he said.

The baby reportedly died five months ago.

South Korea has one of the world's fastest broadband networks. Seoul has won international awards for e-governance. Online gaming teams are sponsored by major conglomerates and 24-hour, high-speed Internet cafes, known as PC Bangs, dot every urban neighborhood.

Police said the couple had lost their jobs and used the game as an escape from reality, especially after the birth of their premature baby.

"They instead played an online game in which they raised a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby," Chung Jin-won, a police officer in Suwon, told Yonhap News Agency.

"South Korea remains a very conservative society so people who fall outside the norm can come under severe stress and pressure," said Michael Breen, the Seoul-based author of "The Koreans."

"The Internet has provided such people with a paradise to escape to and simply get lost in."

Now what do you think?  I welcome your thoughts.  What is behind such escapism?  Such blatant disregard for life, even the life of your own flesh and blood.  I do not understand it, but I think we can find a clue by looking at the current state of our culture.  By "culture" I don't mean American culture, or Korean culture in this case, but our world's culture.  How have we gotten to where we are?  How have we come to value the things we value?  Personally, I think much of the root of the problem, the source of such terrible, self-centered actions is our relativism.  There is no truth, nothing grounded.  There may be norms of acceptable behavior, which differ from society to society or country to country.  But these norms are not accepted as truth, but only expectations.  There is no absolute truth, so there is no "right" way to treat your spouse, or your kids, or a stranger.  There is no "right" way to live.  I think this has led to the general acceptance of selfish behavior.  If there is no "right" way to live, then I can live however I want.  Don't tell me how to live, or that my way isn't right--it's right for ME, we say.  So our relativism has led to selfishness, which has made all sorts of behavior normal.

I think one of the most acceptable forms of behavior in our world culture is escapism.  The escapism that leads us to consume vast amounts of TV so we don't have to deal with our issues.  The escapism that leads us to eat vast amounts of food so we don't have to deal with our emotions.  The escapism that leads to adults playing hours of video games each day.  Or spending hours browsing the internet.  Or, in my own personal sphere, spending hours playing "fantasy sports"...  What, exactly, are we trying to escape from???  Our own mortality?  Our issues?  Our LIVES?

Why on earth this couple would take part in a fantasy internet game (about raising a human) and forsake actually raising their own daughter is beyond comprehension. It is utterly disgusting.  Despicable.  But the further our culture fades into relativism, and then into selfishness, the more such behavior will happen.  

May we all escape from our escapist tendencies.

May we drink in the life that is front of us, life that is calling to be lived to the full.

And more than anything, may we realize there is a right way to live, a way that loves and values life and sacrifices for others.  A way that lays down its own right to be selfish...

Lent: focus on Christ or ourselves?

So I didn't grow up with Lent.  My very Protestant churches probably did not even consider celebrating this season.  Despite that, I have come to appreciate it, albeit from a distance.  I have still never been very active at celebrating, though I think it clearly has value for focusing our thoughts on Christ and remembering his journey to the cross (and what it means for our lives).

That said, I have never understood the whole "giving something up" for Lent.  If the whole point of the season is to focus our thoughts on Christ, and ultimately to bow our hearts before the somber sacrifice Christ made on the cross, why do we spend the 40 days leading up Good Friday thinking about OURSELVES and what WE are going to give up??  It seems backwards.  Now I am sure there is value in such ascetic practices, and I am sure I need more of those practices in my life (times of silence, fasting, etc.).  But I feel like we have mixed up what this season is about: it's not about us and our issues, it's about Christ!

Certainly that has implications for our lives, but it seems like from the start we make the Lenten season a time of self-focus instead of Christ-focus.  What if instead of giving something up we spent time each day thinking about a different aspect of Christ's life and death in a structured and serious way?  I don't know--I'm really just throwing thoughts out there.  The basic point is that I think giving something up for lent has the potential to distract us from its point: our faith is not about us, but about Christ and who he is and what he did for us and for all humanity.

I like what Eugene Cho said on this (here), as he said, " I don’t want to think of it as a giving up but rather a season of more deeply ‘giving in’ or ‘giving to’…"  How can we give ourselves to Christ more deeply during this time--through obedience or conversation or study of his Word?  This gets closer to what I am saying, although it is still about us and what WE are giving to God.  Let's focus instead on what God is giving to us, what he has already given to us.  Let's make Christ the focus of Lent...

Thoughts on the Documentary Food Inc.

I posted some thoughts (here) a while back on what we eat and how it is related to the Kingdom, to being Shalomers (see what I mean by "Shalomer" here).  I just watched a very interesting documentary called Food Inc., and it had a lot to say about this very issue.  The basic premise of the movie is that we as Americans have become very separated from our food.  Agriculture used to be part of our lives, whether we worked the land ourselves or knew those who did.  We used to know where our food came from, but today is a different story.  Most of the food on the shelves of our grocery stores is processed beyond recognition, making it terribly unhealthy.  So this movie will make you think about what you eat, and making some changes in the foods you buy.


What it did not convince me of was the need to buy only "organic" foods, which seemed to be one of the goals of the movie.  For a long time I have questioned: what exactly IS "organic," and who defines it, and how do I know someone hasn't just slapped organic on the label to make me think it's healthier so they can charge me more?  These are all still valid questions in my mind after watching the movie, but I would say while I do not feel obliged to buy organic now, I do have serious questions about the quality of the food I'm buying.  Is the chicken or beef I am buying terribly unhealthy because of the terrible practices of the few huge, multinational food companies who control the meat markets?  Some of the images regarding how these companies raise chickens or cows in order to pump out the meat were absolutely disgusting, but so important to see.  Those images, and understanding such practices, will certainly make you think about the foods you buy.


This was the most helpful and challenging part of the movie to me: I am much more aware of my ignorance about where my food comes from, my utter separation from the production of my food.  And I don't think our current model is the way it is supposed to work.


Beyond this, there was a quote in the movie that I really appreciated, and I started nodding my head and saying, "Now you're talking like a Christian!"  They were interviewing a remarkable farmer, a guy named Joel Salatin.  He has refused to sell out to the multi-national corporations, and is passionate about farming and raising chickens and pigs (even slaughtering them) in humane ways.  He said, "A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever creative design the human can foist upon that critter will probably view individuals within its community and other cultures in the community of nations with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling type mentality."  You have to watch the movie to understand what it is that these corporations have been doing to animals (and us, by extension) in order to increase profits, but it was disturbing to watch.  


And I think Joel is onto something here.  Now anyone who knows me knows that I am the farthest thing from a PETA advocate.  Don't have pets, don't want pets, etc.  But when it is acceptable in a culture to treat animals the way they have been treating them, it is not too big of a leap to assume that such a selfish way of thinking will bleed over into the ways we view and treat other humans.  In fact, the movie did show that it was not a leap at all for these corporations, who have made a business of recruiting Mexican nationals to come and work in their meat-packing plants.  Then when the government began cracking down on illegal immigrants, they helped the government round up and arrest their own employees, taking no responsibility for what they had done.  Further, they made a deal with the government that they would hand over 15 illegal immigrants a day, so that things at the plant could keep running smoothly and profits would not be affected.  Wow!  It sounds to me as if they had indeed made the leap, viewing HUMAN BEINGS working for them as nothing but "a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure," in Joel's words.  (I don't think he has a medical degree in his future, by the way).  :)  


Here's the point: each action we take says something about the condition of our hearts, about how we view and value life.  What we eat and what we are okay with in the production of our food also makes a statement.  I encourage you to watch this movie, if only to educate yourself.  But more, I encourage you to not let the ends, whatever they are in your life, justify unwholesome, unhealthy means.  
 

Powell's Introducing the New Testament

So I just read the opening chapter of this work for my New Testament class.  It is a text book, but it is such a wonderful text book.  Great layout, great charts, and most importantly great information.  I have had several New Testament classes before, in undergrad, so much of the information was not new to me.  But lots of it was, or I had forgotten.  And the way he lays out the information is so helpful.

Then the thought hit me that the information in this book could be so transformative for all Christians--it could shape the ways they read and understand the New Testament, thus transforming their faith and understanding of God.  So I wanted to recommend this book, though I've only read the first 30 pages.  If you want to learn about the background of the story of Jesus--what was going on, what it meant to its original audience, and so have a better understanding of what it means for us today--I recommend reading this book.  

I think every Christian, at their baptism, should get a book like this and a book like Epic of Eden by Sandra Richter to read before they start reading the actual Bible.  So get these two books--you won't regret it!

The Olympics, God's Call, and Shalom

As I was watching some of the Olympics last night, some thoughts occurred to me about the goals we give ourselves to, the calling or vocation we dedicate our lives to.  I have been thinking a lot about calling lately, about how each of us has one life and a limited supply of days and months and years with which to "pursue our calling."  To back up and talk about what calling is briefly (you can see the previous posting on primary/secondary calling for more), I believe calling to be all about the Caller.  My calling is what God has specifically designed me to be and to do for him, and I discover that calling in the midst of my relationship with him.  Though we all have the same primary calling, to love and follow Christ, to be Shalomers in essence, our secondary callings are our specific calling from God.  And I believe he knows each of us, and has a plan for each of us, and is calling each of us to something special.

In other words, I don't think we go to seminars and read books on our personality types, fill out surveys on what jobs might work for us, and then choose from an arbitrary list of possible job fits.  These methods may actually help us in discerning what God is calling us to, but we can never discover our true calling outside of our relationship with him, because "calling" assumes a Caller.

Anyway, what does all of this have to do with the Olympics?  Well I was watching the female mogul skiers last night, and each time one of them would get a little too much air in one of her jumps and would fall down, the thought hit me: Oh my goodness--this girl has been training for the past four years, and probably for much longer than that, in order to be at these Olympics and compete.  And she just fell down.  Her dream is over.  All her work has come to naught, at least insofar as she was training with the purpose of winning a medal for herself and her country.  It's over.  Better luck in four years.

How sad is that!  And then the thought hit me that perhaps she has been in training this whole time for something she was never called to do.  Now this is not for me or anyone else to judge: whether someone else is properly pursuing his or her calling.  We each have enough trouble trying to figure out what OUR OWN calling is to worry about others.  But if we want to be about partnering with God in this world to bring his Kingdom, his Shalom, and if we want to be about helping to right the wrongs of this world for God's glory, I think we can say that some things are probably not worth pursuing.

We only get one life, after all.  I was trying to explain to my oldest daughter about age, and about how her sister is not actually 0, but is 5 months old.  She, I explained, is 41 months old, and her daddy is something like 300 months old.  (She was staring at me blankly throughout this conversation, and I realized this was all a little abstract for her 3 year-old mind).  But the point is that we only get a certain number of months, don't we?  And then they are all used up.  Further, we may get many fewer months than we envisioned or planned on.

What does all of this mean?  Well I believe God is calling you and I to something special, something big.  I believe he has important plans for each of our lives, and if we will open our minds and hearts and seek that out, he will lead us to a place we never imagined, but to a place that is so much greater than where we could or would have taken ourselves.  If we will earnestly ask God to make his vision for our lives our vision, I believe he'll reveal a call for our lives that is more dangerous than we are comfortable with, but more exciting and meaningful than we could have imagined!

Let us not seek out a "good job", or a comfortable lifestyle, or a nice salary, or whatever.  Let us seek out Christ, and let us be passionate about using our only life to partner with God to bring his Shalom to this world.  Let us follow after Jesus in giving away our lives for the sake of something bigger than ourselves, so that we will not have bought into the great American lie and lived our lives for ourselves, for something less than eternal, for nothing...